


The Magic of Christmas

by Aki (Akiko_Natsuko)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Love, M/M, Memories, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-22 18:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16603538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akiko_Natsuko/pseuds/Aki
Summary: It was Lance that had let him feel almost as though this was his first Christmas…not just their first Christmas. He had pushed and pulled, never going too far, to get Keith involved with each stage. Sharing his enthusiasm and family traditions without reservation, leaving Keith no room to doubt that he was wanted for this Christmas, that he belonged





	The Magic of Christmas

“Keith…?”

     Keith jolted at the quiet voice, looking up with guilty eyes as he heard movement in the doorway, turning to find that Lance was leaning on the doorframe, rubbing sleepily at his eyes and yet still managing to look worried as he met Keith’s gaze. “What are you doing up at…” Lance yawned, glancing across at the clock and squinting at it, still half-asleep. “Four in the morning on Christmas Eve? You can’t open presents until tomorrow you know?” There was a note of gentle teasing in that last question, although it did little to mask Lance’s concern as he padded further into the room, still watching Keith who found himself having to look away.

“I know,” he muttered, glancing down at his hands which were twisted together in his lap, realising that his grip had tightened to the point where his nails were biting into his skin. He bit his lip, trying to convince himself to relax.

“Keith?” Lance had circled around the sofa and was stood in front of him, and when Keith glanced up, he knew that his boyfriend had seen what he was doing to his hands, colour seeping into his cheeks. He opened his mouth, planning on saying something reassuring, but the words wouldn’t come. In the past, he would have been able to summon up a lie, mask the dark thoughts and memories in a smile, but under Lance’s gaze, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, making a soft, inarticulate noise of frustration. “Hey,” Lance’s voice was soft, a tone that only Keith and Lance’s younger siblings were ever privy too, no sign of his usual bravado and attitude to be seen as he crouched in front of Keith and reached out to take his hands, gently easing them into his own grip and forcing Keith to let go. “What’s wrong?”

_Nothing. Everything._

    Keith wasn’t sure what to say. He wasn’t even sure what had caused his mood to spiral like this, well no…that was a lie. He had gone to bed feeling excited about Christmas for once, knowing that it had everything to do with Lance who had already been curled up and snoring when he had slipped under the covers, and he had gone to sleep, riding that wave of excitement and contentment. Emotions that had been out his reach for so long. Maybe that was why the nightmare had hit him for the first time in months, washing over him with an intensity that he hadn’t felt for years.

_The world was turning, spinning around him, and lights flooded his vision, bright flashes that stood out starkly against the darkness around them. He could hear horns honking around them, metal scraping on metal, and above all of it, he could hear screams._

_He could hear her scream. Then her voice, frantic, desperate as she tried to soothe him, her words the only thing grounding him in this strange, tumbling world._

_And then there had been silence._

_And a sharp, splintering pain._

_And then nothing…_

“Keith! KEITH!”

     Keith blinked, the after images of his nightmare. No, not a nightmare…memory…fading as he felt fingers brushing his cheek, the gentle touch calling him back into the present and he blinked again, Lance’s face coming back into view and he blanched. It had been a long time since he had seen that expression on Lance’s face, and he wondered just what his expression must have been to put that look on his boyfriend’s face, an apology hovering on the tip of his tongue before he was abruptly yanked into a tight hug. “You’re okay,” Lance murmured, and Keith almost wanted to laugh, a watery noise slipping free as he clung to Lance. The other man didn’t even know what was wrong, Keith had never really gone into details about his complicated past, and yet here he was offering comfort, the hug and the feel of Lance’s fingers curling into his hair everything that he needed right now.

     They remained like that for a while, and to be honest, Keith would happily have stayed like that for a lot longer, Lance’s touch soothing hurts that he hadn’t known he still bore. However, he was highly aware of the fact that they had plans for Christmas Eve and a to-do list that had been a mile long before they went to sleep, and knowing Lance, would probably grow during the day, besides he knew that Lance needed his beauty sleep. If only to stop him whining. And slowly, reluctantly he pulled back out of the hug, although he didn’t protest when Lance promptly switched to grasping his hand, tangling their fingers together. “You should go back to bed.”

“What about you?” Lance demanded immediately.

“I…” Keith swallowed, still unable to bring himself to lie, instead admitting quietly. “I don’t think I can sleep again tonight.” The thought of closing his eyes and reliving that nightmare was too much, and he shuddered, knowing that Lance would feel it, hunching his shoulders defensively. He’d got a lot better about showing and sharing his emotions, hell, Shiro had commended him on it just the other week, but he still wasn’t amazing at it, and he looked down, worried about how Lance would react.

He shouldn’t have worried.

    There was a soft noise, almost a sigh, but before he could look up and see the disappointment on his boyfriend’s face, he found himself being nudged backwards as Lance clambered to his feet. Startled by the determination in Lance’s face, he allowed Lance to turn him and push him down on the sofa until he was stretched out along its length, only finding his voice when Lance settled on top of him. “What are you doing?” It wasn’t really a protest, he could never protest when Lance was this close to him, so close that their breath mingled when Lance looked down at him, a smile playing on his lips.

“Lying on the sofa with my boyfriend.”

“Why?” Keith asked, realising that Lance wasn’t going to give him a more thorough answer without prompting as he caught the challenging light in the blue eyes.

“Because he’s refusing to go back to bed,” Lance retorted, but there was no heat in his voice, not that it stopped Keith from flinching at his words. He should have known that Lance wouldn’t let that drop, just as the other man hadn’t let it drop when Keith had been foolishly trying to push him away in the early days of their relationship, certain that he was going to screw things up and trying to head it off at the pass. Lance had clung to him like a limpet, refusing to move, and in the end, Keith had given away - not without some considerable relief. “Besides, I can’t sleep without my human pillow,” Lance interrupted his thoughts with a teasing poke, before curling against his chest, resting his head above Keith’s heart.

“So glad I can be of service,” Keith retorted, trying to sound irritated and failing miserably, but it was hard to be annoyed when Lance looked so content where he was, breathing already threatening to even out again as it really was too early for him to be awake. Sighing, and trying to pretend that he was making the most of a bad situation Keith wrapped his arms around Lance, making sure the idiot couldn’t roll off in his sleep. Unable to deny to himself, that just having Lance like this was a balm on his raw emotions, and that he needed this closeness with those memories so close to the surface.

“Keith, will you tell me what’s wrong?” Lance’s quiet voice, little more than a mumble and heavy with sleep startled him a couple of minutes as he’d thought that his boyfriend was already asleep again. However, the sleepiness seemed to fade from his voice as he continued. “You’ve been acting off the last few days, I know that it was the anniversary of your parents’ death last week, and I thought that maybe you were also nervous about meeting the family. But it’s more than that isn’t it?” Keith blanched at that. He’d thought that he’d been subtler than that, but then again, Lance who could be the most oblivious person on the planet at times…. like when Keith had been trying to show him that the liked him…was at times, usually the worst of times, the most observant person that Keith had ever met.

He should have known that Lance would see through him.

    He just didn’t know what to say now, or whether he wanted to say it. Lance loved Christmas with a passion, his eyes lighting up with childish glee whenever they spoke about the holiday and he had been as hyper as any kid when they had decorated their tiny flat. Keith didn’t want to take that from him, and he didn’t want the past tainting what had been shaping up to be the best Christmas he’d had since he was a child. Yet, it had already done that. His nightmare and he wanted to curse his mind for throwing those issues up now of all times, had already brought the past to the surface and he knew that with Lance watching him this closely, there was no way he would be able to hide it.

But was he ready to say it aloud?

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Lance whispered, almost as though he had heard where Keith’s thoughts had gone. “Or if you’re not ready. I’m not going to go anywhere, even if you tell me to forget about it. But if you do want to tell me, I’m here.”

“I…” Keith swallowed, a lump rising in the back of his throat because he knew that Lance meant it. He could choose to remain silent, to keep the past to himself and let it taint their Christmas together and his boyfriend would bear it without complaint. Yet, he also knew Lance wouldn’t judge him, and that he might be able to understand in a way that no one besides Shiro had ever been able to. It was that last realisation that decided him, his breath catching as he realised just how much he trusted Lance and he took a deep breath, fingers slipping under Lance’s top, needing the feel of soft, warm skin beneath his fingertips to ground himself. “I…never told you about what happened to my parents did I?”

_He’d always loved Christmas. Back then, at the tender age of four or five, all he had seen was the magic of Christmas, not knowing just how cruel the world could be. He had loved everything about the holiday, the lights in the windows and on the tree, the wreath hanging from the front door and the sign in the front garden telling Santa where to stop. He had been perfectly happy to spend hours in the living room just staring up at the tree, wondering what Santa would think about it when he came, and making up stories about what the Angel on the top of the tree got up to when they were all asleep. He spent hours sending her on adventures, his parents laughing when he shared the tales with them, asking him questions, encouraging him/_

_Those had been happy, innocent years. His parents had still been alive, and Christmas had been a time of magic just as it was for all children. There had been piles of presents under the trees with his name on, a home-made stocking hanging on the end of his bed and a table set up to put Santa’s snack and drink on. It had been perfect, and naively Keith had thought that everything would always be like that._

_How wrong he had been._

_It had been a year later, his sixth Christmas, when his parents had died. They’d been driving home from the Carol Service, Keith excitedly regaling them with everything that had happened backstage and his performance, not caring that they had been there to see it. They had been laughing and chatting, teasing him about how he had accidentally knocked down the Christmas tree in his enthusiasm when the drunk driver had slammed into their car._

_Keith had never forgotten the sheer terror of feeling the car spinning across the road, lights blinding him as they were knocked into the path of oncoming traffic, screams and the honking of horns filling the air. His mother shouting to him that everything was going to be okay, seconds before she had gone silent. Her voice the last thing he remembered before the world had disappeared in a swirl of darkness and sharp, splintering pain._

_When he had woken in the hospital two days later, barely a week before Christmas, to find that his parents were gone, and he was alone in the world._

“The doctors and nurses told me that it was a miracle I had survived,” Keith whispered, his voice thicker and less steady than it had been at the beginning. Lance’s grip tightened, and he felt his boyfriend press a kiss to his chest, still not speaking, no doubt picking up on the fact that Keith wasn’t finished and that he wouldn’t be able to continue if he was interrupted. “It didn’t feel like it…”

_That Christmas had been a miserable affair. He had been laid up in the children’s ward as he recovered, forced to listen as parents and families crowded around the other children on the ward. He had ignored all attempts to involve him in Christmas, in fact, the only time he had involved himself had been when their Santa had come to sit beside him, asking him in a too gentle voice what he wanted for Christmas. Keith had already seen the other children opening their presents from the man, receiving board games, books and sweets to keep them entertained. He didn’t want any of that, and he had lifted his head and met the Santa’s gaze, and in a funny, hard voice he had demanded._

_“I want my parents back…”_

“No one knew what to do,” Keith snorted, a bitter, broken noise and Lance shifted closer, lifting his head to look at him. “I can’t blame them, but at the time I hated them…”

_They had rushed the Santa away without a response, and Keith had subsided back into sullen silence for the rest of his time in that hospital, waiting to find out what was going to happen to him._

_Hell._

_Hell, was what had waited for him in the new year. With no living family, he had wound up in the foster care system and so had begun the long years of passing from house to house. There were times, brief moments when he had let himself hope that things would improve, that this new family would want him to stay. That they would want him, and he could regain some of what he had lost._

_It never lasted._

_Christmases had started to pass in a blur. Some families went out of the way to try and make him feel included, while others ignored it and him completely. He wasn’t sure what was worse. It hurt to pretend to be part of a family, as he was unable and unwilling to forget the Christmases he had spent with his own parents, to forget their traditions, those magical moments that had been stolen from him. But at the same time, it hurt to be ignored, to feel like a ghost in a place that he was supposed to consider his home. Only he never did, it didn’t matter if they welcomed him with open arms or closed expression, those houses were never his home, those families were never his._

_He’d had a family._

_He’d had a home._

_Instead, he’d cling to the memories of what he’d had, using them to protect himself as he built up walls around him, sealing himself off from the people and world around him. It had taken him a while to perfect them, to insulate himself in a wall of anger, never sure if the anger was at himself or at the world around him, and by that time the barriers had been sky high. After that he had found himself moving from house to house and family to family more often, no one knowing how to deal with his anger, or how to penetrate the barriers he’d built, and he tried to tell himself that he didn’t mind. That he didn’t want to let them in, terrified that they would replace his parents. Scared that if he opened up even just a little, that it would all be snatched away from him again._

_You couldn’t lose what you didn’t have._

_And Christmas had fallen to the side…_

“I’m sorry,” Lance’s quiet murmur pulled him out of his thoughts, and he blinked, startled by the shimmer in the blue eyes, and the dampness on his boyfriend’s cheeks that said some of the tears had escaped. _He cried for me?_ Lance had always been the more emotional of the two, that was just how it was, but the thought of him crying over what had happened to him was overwhelming, and Keith had to fight the urge to look away, to hide from this man that cared enough to shed tears for him. However, he couldn’t ignore that quiet apology, and when he finally got his voice to work, he asked unsteadily.

“Why are you apologising?”

“I’ve been busy pushing Christmas on you, even after you’d told me that the anniversary was coming up,” Lance whispered, fingers curling in his shirt, clinging to him as he looked down.  “I…”

“Stop,” Keith cut him off, shaking his head when Lance looked up with wide, startled eyes. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“But…”

     Keith silenced him with a kiss, just a quick, brush of the lips, but it was enough to quell his protest as Lance stared at him and despite everything Keith felt his lips quirk up at the sight. It was rare that he managed to surprise his boyfriend, and he almost wanted to savour the moment. Almost. Because there were more important things to take care of and he pulled back, just enough to give him room to move his hand to cup Lance’s cheek. “This is the first time in years I’ve been excited about Christmas.” This time of year had improved once he was old enough to live on his own, and after he’d met Shiro who’d quickly become the best friend and mentor he hadn’t realised he needed, making sure he had somewhere to got at Christmas and gifts waiting for him that meant something…but it paled in comparison to what he had with Lance.

    It had been Lance that had let him feel almost as though this was his first Christmas - not just their first Christmas. He had pushed and pulled, never going too far, to get Keith involved with each stage. Sharing his enthusiasm and family traditions without reservation, leaving Keith no room to doubt that he was wanted for this Christmas, that he belonged. It was going to be his first Christmas as part of a large family, as the two of them were spending the day with Lance’s family who had already all but adopted him, and he had glimpsed the presents under their tree…the labels that had his name. That had already been too much, but there were more presents piled under his and Lance’s tree, his boyfriend seemingly adding to the pile by the day, always shushing his weak protests with a quick kiss and a reassurance that he was more than worth it.

    It was Lance who had dragged him to the University Carol Service, the first one he had attended in years, the two of them curling together on a bench at the back, spending more time-sharing kisses and letting their hands roam than singing. And who had spent the last few weeks chasing him around their flat with a sprig of mistletoe, telling him it was the only way he could truly get the ‘magic of Christmas’, when it had been Lance himself, with his warm smile and childish excitement that had allowed Keith to grasp that feeling once more.

“You,” he murmured, emotion getting the better of him. The memories were still there, they always would be. The nightmares would come and go. But this…what he had with Lance, was real and here, and he brushed his finger over Lance’s cheek, taking a deep breath to try and settle himself.  “You’ve already made this the best Christmas I’ve had in years, just by being you,” his voice was still wavering, but it was growing stronger. “So, don’t you dare apologise for giving me this,” he whispered fiercely. It was all Lance could do to nod, sniffling and leaning into his hand, and this time when Keith leant in to kiss him, Lance met him halfway with a slightly watery laugh, his own voice less than steady when they parted a moment later, breath still mingling as he murmured against Keith’s lips.

“Merry Christmas.”

 


End file.
